The sky bound branches, whitely
on Main Street, and the clothes we wore—
orange for the motorcade—streetlamps
in the bright, two streamline rows,
& brocades, to isolate
the conversation around us.
Our own, through drain-rimmed
paving light slides—the first
of many tragedies. In differing skies,
the quick of observation, no one could—
of differing skies—nor could see at all.

Crosshairs roof the black sky,
its drastic depopulation caught us
singing jolly little songs. & the wheels grind
to halt in evening's heart,
and the wind rush in—
a lively indicator of speed.
To observe, to see, to hold,
to take, the machine, its gears and shutter.
To hold still the process, into whom I bury my hands
and take fleet time to devour—
the salts become with time the sands.
Our laden without brought within,
a marriage thinly placed at eye-level,
target certitude.
                              Gelatin, silver print
gave trammelled memory scent—
the salts that film our eyes.
That they too might isolate from talk
in the freeze the music wastes,
obscured by branches, and a great cloud
envelopes the mind, as fading saline badinage,
taking of its heart, ousted whitely
through the act of print, and fed,
still beating, into the fix.

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As for the origin of the poem— [origin]